Jenna Murphy

Dr. Kevin Brooks

ENGL 275: Rhetorical Interpretation

3/10/17

Finding Common Ground in the Immigration and Refugee Resettlement Debate:

A Burkean Cluster Criticism Analysis

Introduction

Global conflicts, unrest, and violence over recent years have led to increased immigration

worldwide, including refugee resettlement in the United States. At the same time, efforts to

welcome refugees as well as growing concerns about the impact of immigration in the United

States have been expressed by citizens and policy makers alike. Unfortunately, deeply divided

positions on immigration and refugee resettlement have been exemplified recently in President

Trumps Executive Orders on travel and the ensuing debate surrounding the orders. However, the

deep, if not entrenched, positions regarding immigration policy and attitudes toward immigrants

and refugees do not have to remain at a stalemate.

Through dynamic analysis utilizing Kenneth Burkes Cluster Criticism of current

discourse on the issue, common ground shared by both sides of the debate can be found. Careful

analysis of rhetoric on both sides of the issue reveals common ground when considering the

fears, concerns, hopes, and desires both sides express about changing communities in light of

immigration and refugee resettlement. Consideration of several discourse artifacts, representing

differing sides of the immigration and refugee resettlement issue, indicate shared concerns

regarding fostering community life in which both local residents and refugees can flourish.
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Methods of Analysis

Kenneth Burke, eminent rhetorician of 20th century, outlined several useful tools for

interpreting rhetoric today. Although Burkes Pentadic Criticism will not be utilized in this study,

it bears noting given its contribution to writing studies. In their article, Burkes Pentad as a

Guide for Symbol-Using Citizens, Rountree and Rountree explain how pentadic, or dramatistic,

criticism enables students to become linguistically-aware citizens by understanding how

language-use implicates larger social relations, how language can reframe, reconstruct, and

otherwise revise our very conception of reality (350). Rountree and Rountree suggest that

symbol users of Burkes pentad can think critically about sources of motives, rather than drawing

reductionary conclusions, and hold increased awareness of the power of language as connected

to terms in the pentad (357). The five termsact, scene, agent, agency, and purpose are the

basis for pentadic pairing (Anderson). Rountree and Rountree outline specifically how Burkes

use of pentadic pairing, or the pairing of pentadic terms in ratios, provides a tool for symbol

users to evaluate emphasis and relations displayed in language that may label or rob individuals

of agency by limiting attributions of motives (357). The scene-act pairing, for example,

highlights the removal of agency, as in the case of recent war rhetoric by President Obama and

George W. Bush by expressing the need to engage in combat due to circumstances beyond the

agents (e.g., the Presidents) control (358).

The pentad bears benefits and limitations for analysis. Burkes methodical approach to

interpretation involving pentadic ratios requires careful consideration on the part of symbol

users. This careful consideration entails a slower and arguably more thorough analysis of

discourse. According to McClure and Skwar, pentadic analysis allows critics to ferret out the

motives of symbolic acts (and tie these motives to a philosophic school or modes of thought).
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The fact that pentadic criticism requires careful consideration and analysis, in addition to the fact

that Burkes fundamentals continue to be used today, speaks to a kind of ethos generally

associated with his methods. At the same time, pentadic criticism continues to be developed and

nuanced as contemporary scholars expand Burkes approach. Many of the specific details of

pentadic analysis were not provided by Burke, and instead, a more general theoretical lens was

provided. Therefore, symbol users today must be thoughtful and explanatory in their application

of his methods.

Another Burkean approach, Cluster Criticism, is intended to help the analyst discover a

rhetors worldview, and was used in this study (Foss 63). In this approach, the rhetors discourse

is analyzed to determine key or major terms, and the lesser terms that cluster, or appear in

association with, those major terms. Burke suggests, now the work of every writer [rhetor]

contains a set of implicit equations. He uses associated clusters. And you may, by examining

his work, find what goes with what in these clusterswhat kinds of acts and images and

personalities and situations go with his notions of heroism, villainy, consolation, despair, etc.

(Burke qtd. in Foss 64). In Cluster Criticism, the key terms and those that cluster around them

are charted by the analyst to represent the relationships between terms in the text. These terms

are then designated as either god or devil terms depending on their usage in the given piece

being analyzed. God or devil terms invoke a certain moral connotation associated with their use

and may reveal underlying attitudes of the writer.

Limitations of Cluster Criticism may involve the binary it enacts through classifying

terms as either god or devil terms. While revealing, the inherently limiting nature of a binary

may prove to be one of the drawbacks of Cluster Criticism as it classifies terms as belonging to

either god or devil categories. In addition, Cluster Criticisms evaluation of words in a text
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as units of analysis also means that the approach remains highly focused on small word units, in

contrast to Pentadic Analysis, which is necessarily larger in overview. At the same time, the use

of this method is revealing in terms of the study at hand given its ability for the analyst to clearly

focus on key concerns presented in the texts. By considering these key terms, the fears, desires,

and concerns of the author become apparent.

Scope

The texts involved in this particular study include Welcoming Americas, Immigrants

and Refugees Welcome! announcement and The Refugee Resettlement Watch blog post,

Comment Worth Noting: Shocked at What I Saw in Lewiston, ME. These sources were chosen

because they represent two major and polar positions on the immigration and refugee debate

currently happening in the US today. A third source, a speech given by David Lubell who is the

founder of Welcoming America, Why We Need to Talk to Strangers will also be used to further

supplement the available text for analysis and also echoes many of the themes presented in the

Immigrants and Refugees Welcome! announcement. Taken as a whole, these sources provide

insight into the fears, desires, hopes, and dreams of individuals on both sides of the issue and

indicate where common ground can be found.

As examples of discourse, the sources present a variety of kinds of discourse as text,

or a coherent unit of analysis beyond the sentence. This understanding of discourse is

significant in that it expands the analytic lens beyond sentence grammar to texts as whole,

meaningful, socially-situated units (Heilker and Vandenberg 63). For example, the Welcoming

America announcement is representative of nonprofit, civic discourse, while the Refugee

Resettlement Watch blog by Ann Corcoran is perhaps best representative of individual, public

discourse. David Lubells speech is also aligned with individual, public discourse, although
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Lubell does represent his work with the Welcoming America nonprofit entity in his message. In

this sense, the variety of texts used in this study are representative of at least two kinds of

discourse as text.

In addition, the scope of these texts also allows the analyst to further understand the range

of discourse presented as part of a social structure. This approach, derived by Michel Foucault,

understands discourse as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak

(Heilker and Vandenberg 64). In the case of the Welcoming America texts and the Refugee

Resettlement blog post, Foucaults approach can be applied to reveal the practices and beliefs

that shape conceptual objects through discourse, including those related to immigration and

refugee resettlement, as well as how this discourse is then used to shape ideas, values, and

behaviors in society at large (64). The articles and speech used in this study, representing two

sides of the current immigration issue, allow the analyst to bear out the meaning of discourse as

social structure according to differing points of view.

Application/Results

The primary research question involved in this study is related to whether any common

ground, ideals, fears, desires or concerns could be found in the rhetoric between two opposing

sides of the current immigration and refugee resettlement debate in the US. In summary, the side

of the debate represented by Welcoming America and David Lubell tends to favor continued

immigration and refugee resettlement in the US. On the other hand, the position expressed by

Ann Corcoran on her blog Refugee Resettlement Watch, and, specifically in the guest author

post, Comment Worth Noting: Shocked at What I saw in Lewiston, ME, reveals distrust and a

call for limitations on immigration or refugee resettlement in the US.

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A Cluster Criticism approach to Ann Corcorans Refugee Resettlement Watch post

regarding Lewiston reveals a high use of the terms, refugee, number(s), and

Lewiston/town, which appear to be key terms. The words refugee and Lewiston/town tend

to cluster around each other in the post. This clustering seems to be largely due to the fact that

the guest author is concerned about the large influx of refugees in Lewiston, and thus, has

created a close association of the terms in the article. In fact, the opening line of the guest post

states, From someone whose family has lived in Lewiston for almost 100 years: I just wanted to

give you an update on what Refugee Resettlement can do to a city, Lewiston, ME. [emphasis

mine]. The author then goes on to express her concern about Somalian refugees in the town

(Corcoran). In this instance, as well as others, the author seems to be concerned about the

presence and impact of refugees in Lewiston or the town.

This concern seems best expressed by the words that tend to cluster around the key term

number(s), including words such as, gangs, violence, and crime in the post. These terms

could be understood as devil terms as defined by Burke. Refugee also appears to be a devil

term in the post, given its close association with the other negatively defined terms such as

gangs, violence, and crime. For example, in the post the guest author writes, I dont mind

other people, but the sheer numbers of people, then I spoke to my cousins who have lived there

all their lives, and they explained the issues of crime, school violence, poverty, rejection of

American values, and the general hatred of women by the Somali refugees (Corcoran). The

guest author closely associates sheer numbers of people, previously identified as refugees, with

the devil terms of crime, school violence, poverty, and others.

A second term, integrate or integration appears in high concentration around the term

numbers. Both Ann Corcoran and her guest author in the post seem very concerned about the
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lack of, or need for integration in Lewiston. The guest author writes, This type of

immigration, the dumping of large numbers of refugees, does not work, it doesnt help

integrationImmigrants do not integrate when we drop them in large numbers, it doesnt work,

they dont integrate [italics are mine] (Corcoran). Ann Corcoran adds that

integration/assimilation cant happen when ethnic enclaves build in certain cities, but..The

real problem, in my opinion, is that the overall numbers being admitted to the US are too high!

We need an immigration time out! [italics are mine] Within the call for integration is a related

call for limiting the numbers of those who immigrate.

At the same time, deeper analysis indicates that fears about the numbers of immigrants

and refugees may actually be related to changes in community life. As mentioned, Corcoran and

her guest author seem deeply concerned about the numbers of refugees that are arriving in

their community. They discuss how spaces that were once cherished parts of their community are

no longer accessible to them, viewing refugees as the cause of the shift: [my cousins] kept

saying, we cant get out here to look at a location where family used to live, and how the area

had really gone down hill since the refugees arrivedThe destruction is irreversible, and

horrific, I cried when I saw some of the town and how much it had changed. Elements of

nostalgia are also apparent in the discussion surrounding elements of community. The guest

author remembers, For example Kennedy park was a beautiful place where my Mom and sisters

went to picnic and how nice it was. We were told to stay in the car because Somali drug dealers

had taken over the park, and it wasnt safe (Corcoran). Rather than being necessarily anti-

refugee or anti-immigration, upon closer look, Corcoran and those who share her views actually

seem to be very concerned about the shifting dynamics in their community. Although they

choose to view refugees as the root of the problem, in this sense, any cause of shift in community
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life could be villainized by them. In many regards, their fears, concerns, hopes and desires seem

to center on an understanding of community as a largely static space.

This understanding of community by the guest author and others is evidence of what

writing studies scholars understand as an ideology, or a dominant way of thinking about what

exists, what is good, and what is possible (Heilker and Vandenberg 94). In the case of the

Refugee Resettlement Blog post, the guest authors ideology regarding community spaces

creates subjects and is located in discourse (94). For example, the guest author laments the loss

of community spaces that were known to her in a specific way, indicating the guest authors

ideology about community spaces and life as a kind of static entity. Problematic with this kind of

ideology is the fact that some discourse structures are characteristic of subjects and have a

temporal stability (Alcorn qtd. in Heilker and Vandenberg 95). Rather than viewing

community as a variable environment capable of shift and change, in the blog post the guest

author defends and perpetuates discourses that are related to the authors own subjectivity

even if those discourses might be oppressive to themselves or others (348). Deeper analysis

reveals that those who call for limits on immigration would do well to evaluate the real causes

and solutions to their concerns and fears about community, rather than demonize refugees.

Like the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog post, a Cluster Criticism approach to

Welcoming Americas announcement and David Lubells speech also indicates a strong emphasis

on the importance of community. In fact, communities appears to be the most frequently used

word in Welcoming Americas announcement. Closely clustered with communities is the word,

support. In the announcement, support for communities is expressed both in terms of help

for long-time residents of communities who are experiencing rapid demographic change, and

refugee populations (Lubell). Lubell writes that one of the goals of Welcoming America is to be
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there to help [communities with shifting demographics] turn fear into understanding and to build

connected communities that work for everyone. In the announcement, both communities and

support could be understood as God terms, given Lubells positive outlook on the benefits of

community, while devil terms in the announcement could include fear and hate/incidents of

hate in such communities.

David Lubells speech expands on the contents of the Immigrants and Refugees

Welcome announcement and could be understood as providing a solution to fears about

immigration expressed in the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog post. Like the other discourse

examples, community is a dominant theme and key term in his speech. Terms related to

community, such as, Nashville, people, and immigrant, were also the most frequently

used words in the text and could be understood as God terms given their positive associations

with community.

In his speech, Lubell explains how in his work with Welcoming America he came to be

concerned with fostering communities that involved the people or residents of Nashville,

refugees, and immigrants. While the refugee and immigrant community in Nashville was

booming in the 1990s, as director of Welcoming America in Nashville, Lubell saw firsthand

how community attitudes in Nashville changed. Like the guest author in the Refugee

Resettlement Watch blog post, residents in Nashville changed from being generally receptive

toward immigrants to fearful and apprehensive. Lubell explains:

At first things were okay, but then September 11th happened and all of a sudden people

who didn't notice that refugees and immigrants were in their midst we're having a lot of

fear. Hate crimes grew at a very fast pace, including the burning of a mosque, burning
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to the ground of a mosque. The Nation magazine called Nashville the new epicenter of

the anti-immigrant movement in the United States.

When Lubell was approached by a friend and immigrant who couldnt understand the change

that had happened in Nashville, Lubell was inspired both by his sense of shame and by his will to

make things better for immigrants as he re-evaluated his efforts with Welcoming America.

Lubell explains that he realized a critical part of his work with Welcoming America,

namely, community-building, was missing. While Lubell had worked hard to obtain resources for

immigrants, his organization had neglected to address the desires, fears, concerns, and changes

local residents of the Nashville community had been experiencing. After his discussion with his

immigrant friend, Got Luk, Lubell came to the realization that my organization and many

organizations in Nashville weren't focusing on the right thing. We are providing English classes

and job training and important things for immigrants and refugees, but it wasn't the only thing.

Lubell realized that hate and fear, words that could be understood as devil terms in the

speech, had a different source: You see immigrants and refugees arent the only people that are

dealing with change and having to adjust. Longtime residents and receiving communities are also

having troubles. Lubell was able to reconsider the fear, concerns, and other dynamics at play for

fostering immigrant and refugee resettlement in terms of the dispositions and experiences of

longtime residents.

Lubells strategy for Welcoming America re-centered on building community to include

all people by placing refugees and local residents in contact, by generating positive messages

about refugees through communications, and by finding leaders from every part of the

community to support the message of Welcoming America. Lubell knew that if local residents

could meet immigrants like Got Luk, common ground could be found and fostered. Lubells new
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focus on building community through contact paid off: overtime Nashville started to get a new

reputation, gained a reputation as the most welcoming city in the entire southeastern United

States. And soon became known as one of the most welcoming cities to immigrants and refugees

in the entire country. This strategy of building community through direct contact with refugees,

positive messages, and leadership created positive outcomes for everyone: And what was really

cool was that although I did this work because I wanted to make life better for immigrants and

refugees, we found out that this made life better for all people in Nashville. Success and

meeting the needs, desires, and dreams of everyone in Nashville was made possible: It turns out

businesses want to move to places where their employees feel welcome. It turns out talented

people from around the world want to be in places where they feel welcome, and immigrants and

refugees in the community when they're welcomed and the barriers are removed. They're going

to be more successful. In many ways, Lubell provides a solution and reveals common ground

between both sides of the debate in his emphasis on community building in his speech. The

concerns expressed by Corcoran and the guest author regarding Lewiston, are provided an outlet

and solution in the community-building strategy expressed by Lubell in his speech and

Immigrants and Refugees Welcome announcement.

Conclusion

Use of Cluster Criticism on texts representative of opposing positions of the immigration

and refugee resettlement debate in the US today reveal that common ground can be found.

Although these concerns are often not represented in the same ways by opposing sides, concerns

about community life are revealed under closer analysis. While Ann Corcorans Refugee

Resettlement Watch blog presents shifting community dynamics predominantly as a problem to

be solved through halting immigration and refugee resettlement, David Lubell in his Welcoming
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America announcement sees welcoming refugees as appropriate and positive for communities.

Lubell foreshadows in the Immigrants and Refugees Welcome announcement, and further

develops in his speech, a solution to the concerns of Corcoran and others in the form of

community building activities. These activities include creating contact between longtime local

residents and refugees, increasing positive communication about refugees, and asking leaders of

communities to become involved in resettlement efforts.

While discourse has the power to create and perpetuate oppressive ideology, this study

has revealed that discourse also has the ability to promote positive solutions by revealing deeper

motivations related to fear, concerns, hopes, and desires. These motivations further clarify the

causes of problems as well as common ground. A Burkean Cluster Criticism analysis of

discourse artifacts on both sides of the immigration and refugee resettlement debate reveals the

dominant terms, the ways they interact in text, and the deeper messages promoted in discourse,

ultimately pointing a way to fostering community life in which both local residents and refugees

benefit.
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Works Cited

Anderson, Floyd. Five Fingers or Six? Pentad or Hexad?. KB Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, 2010.
www.kbjournal.org/anderson. Accessed 6 March 2017.

Corcoran, Ann. Comment Worth Noting: Shocked at What I Saw in Lewiston, ME, and I Love
Diversity. Refugee Resettlement Watch, 15 February 2017,
www.refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/.

Foss, Sonja. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. 4th, ed., Waveland Press, 2009.

Heilker, Paul, and Peter Vandenberg. Keywords in Writing Studies. University Press of
Colorado, 2015.

Lubell, David. Welcoming in a New Era. Welcoming America, 19 January 2017,

www.welcomingamerica.org/news/welcoming-new-era

Lubell, David. Why We Need to Talk to Strangers. YouTube, uploaded by Tedx Talks, 6 May
2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6dj8TqI8sU

McClure, Kevin, and Julia Skwar. Toward a Dramatistic Ethics. KB Journal, Vol. 11, no. 1,
2015. www.kbjournal.org/mcclure_skwar_dramatistic_ethics.

Rountree, Clarke and John Rountree. Burkes Pentad as a Guide for Symbol-Using Citizens.
Studies in Philosophy & Education, vol. 34, 2015, pp. 349-362. doi 10.1007/s11217-
014-9436-1.